“Nothing painful is there, nothing fraught with ruin, no shame, no dishonour, that I have not seen in thy woes and mine.”
Sophocles, Antigone, 442 B.C.
Two brothers kill each other in the battle. One is honored, the other is left unburied. His sister defies the tyrant’s order to leave him unburied. She confronts the tyrant and is killed for standing up for her beliefs, for standing up for human dignity.
As my news feed fills up with revolutions, fires, deaths, I feel more and more the need to turn to ancient drama, poetry, art. As I read –once again- Sophocles’ Antigone, I can see why.
It is not about escaping reality, but about feeling and understanding it better. For art doesn’t just count victims or describe clashes, like the evening news. It finds the reasons; the hubris of the dictator, the power of the people, the human values that rise above any arbitrary power:
Freedom, justice, dignity, peace.
February 2011
“Nothing painful is there, nothing fraught with ruin, no shame, no dishonour, that I have not seen in thy woes and mine.”
Sophocles, Antigone, 442 B.C.
Two brothers kill each other in the battle. One is honored, the other is left unburie
“Nothing painful is there, nothing fraught with ruin, no shame, no dishonour, that I have not seen in thy woes and mine.”
Sophocles, Antigone, 442 B.C.
Two brothers kill each other in the battle. One is honored, the other is left unburied. His sister defies the tyrant’s order to leave him unburied. She confronts the tyrant and is killed for standing up for her beliefs, for standing up for human dignity.
As my news feed fills up with revolutions, fires, deaths, I feel more and more the need to turn to ancient drama, poetry, art. As I read –once again- Sophocles’ Antigone, I can see why.
The goal is not to escape reality, but to feel and understand it better. For art doesn’t just count victims or describe clashes, like the evening news. It finds the reasons; the hubris of the dictator, the power of the people, the human values that rise bigger than any arbitrary power:
Freedom, justice, dignity, peace.
February 2011
d. His sister defies the tyrant’s order to leave him unburied. She confronts the tyrant and is killed for standing up for her beliefs, for standing up for human dignity.
As my news feed fills up with revolutions, fires, deaths, I feel more and more the need to turn to ancient drama, poetry, art. As I read –once again- Sophocles’ Antigone, I can see why.
The goal is not to escape reality, but to feel and understand it better. For art doesn’t just count victims or describe clashes, like the evening news. It finds the reasons; the hubris of the dictator, the power of the people, the human values that rise bigger than any arbitrary power:
Freedom, justice, dignity, peace.
February 2011